


Just You, Me and the Quiet

by jenish (phizzle)



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-06-16
Updated: 2005-06-16
Packaged: 2017-10-07 21:00:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/69190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phizzle/pseuds/jenish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Beta by nifty_geek.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Just You, Me and the Quiet

**Author's Note:**

> Beta by nifty_geek.

Billy feels different, somehow, now they're here. After all the days spent huddled up with him and Elijah and Sean to keep out of the cold in New Zealand, after all the nights during his visits to Mexico when they talked for hours and Dom spent most of it curled into Billy's side while Billy stroked his fingers down Dom's back, Dom thinks maybe he should know just how Billy feels next to him. He knows the contours, the crests and dips, as well as any climber knows the mountain he plants his feet on every day. And it's become every day, since that night Billy got a panicked phone call from Elijah and flew over to fetch Dom.

"Take care of him," Elijah had said, and Billy had looked at Dom, asleep in the back of the car, head pillowed on his hand, thinner than Billy liked to see him, and needed to.

"I will," he'd promised, and Elijah had hugged him tightly.

"You're what he needs," he'd whispered, and Billy's heart had swooped, one swift motion in his chest. He'd nodded, and taken Dom home, to Glasgow.

It isn't that Dom is happier here, exactly. He likes it, getting lost among the people, walking down the street with his hair cropped close and falling under everybody's radar. He's only been stopped once since he got here, recognised, and it felt … strange. Someone else's life, can't get mine back. Disappeared like leprecaun gold when you get to the end of the rainbow. Wonder what's on the other side. Wish I could see my way there.

"Just lost, a little," is how he explains it to Billy. He listens, watches, strokes Dom's hair in his sleep, and wonders how the hell to get his sea-god back.

It was an afternoon in New Zealand, surfing with Orlando, when Billy first called Dom a sea-god. Orli had laughed, looked at Dom, and said it suited him. Billy's eyes had just looked proud, and a little wondrous for moments, and Dom had forgotten to look away. Breathless, he had stood, ankles washed by saltwater, and felt the rightness, felt what Billy meant. He'd nodded, and Orlando had swallowed that hair's-bredth feeling that he was intruding somehow. It was just something one got used to, around Dom and Billy.

Billy watches Dom now, playing with Horatio, face splitting into a grin as he rubs the dog's stomach. He glances up at Billy, joy flaring and meeting those watchful eyes, one tiny nugget solidifying into contentment. Billy nods, as if Dom had said something, and when they get home from the park, he opens his laptop and asks Dom if he fancies a holiday.

To which Dom replies, I'd love one.

~*~

Billy isn't entirely sure of the way, in the dark, and keeps his eyes peeled for signs. He'd ask Dom to turn the light on and navigate, but he's spark out in the passenger seat, every now and then making sleepy movements and soft sounds. Billy smiles, reaching over to pet his knee affectionately. Dom smiles in his sleep, murmuring "We there yet, Bills?"

"Not yet," Billy whispers. "One or two things to see to first." He stops, wondering why he said that. Dom just smiles deeper and nestles further into his seat, one hand reaching blindly for his. Billy catches Dom's hand and holds it, gently. Dom attempts a squeeze, too deep in slumber to quite manage his muscles, and Billy takes his eyes off the road for a moment to glance at him, oddly touched. He wants to kiss Dom's hair, but concentrates on driving, again. Time later.

"We'll get there, though, won't we?" Mumbled, half into his own arm. Billy grips his fingers tighter.

"Yes," he whispers. "Shh, sleep, Dom."

"Mmkay." Dom makes as if he wants to follow Billy's voice, cuddle up against his side, but his seatbelt holds him firmly. Billy moves their hands, and smoothes Dom's hair away from his eyes.

He wakes Dom when they get to the cabin, an hour later, and they stumble inside. Billy isn't fully sleepy yet, but Dom can barely keep his eyes open, and Billy helps him into bed, kissing his forehead before quietly moving to the kitchen to get a drink.

He leans against the worktop, eyeing the suitcases lined up next to the sofas in the room beyond. Tomorrow, they could unpack tomorrow. _We've got two weeks_, he thinks, and takes his mobile out of his pocket. He switches it off, and decides not to switch it on again until they leave.

His eyelids droop. He thinks about kipping on the sofa to avoid disturbing Dom when he comes to sleep – one bedroom, just the one bed, all they could find at a moment's notice – but knows that Dom is dead to the world, and even if he did wake him by getting into bed, they'd only talk in mumbles until they both drifted off again.

He takes one last gulp of his drink, sets it silently in the sink, and makes his way to bed. Dom doesn't wake as he slides in, though he moves closer in his sleep, grappling for Billy's warmth to hold on to. Billy pulls Dom closer, resting his cheek on his hair, and drifts to sleep with a warm pair of arms around him.

Dom emerges from sleep with his legs partially numb and tangled with another pair, his arms around a broad chest, and a slight whistling in his ears.

He lifts his head and identifies all limbs, chest and whistling as belonging to Billy, and resettles around him. They are half on and half around each other, wound together, and Dom dozes for a while, forgetting most things and knowing that the rest doesn't matter much.

He is woken again by Billy trying to disentangle himself, realising that in his sleep, he had only clung closer. "Whsmtmst?" he tries to mumble through sleep-sealed lips. Billy smiles.

"Get off me, I need to piss."

Dom aids in the extracation of their limbs from each other, and closes his eyes, listening to Billy padding away to the bathroom, reluctantly acknowledging that he could do with using it next. They meet in the hallway, Dom rubbing his eyes and yawning wide and jaw-cracking. "What are we doing today?" His voice belys his reluctance to break the warmth of bed and comfort of Billy.

"Nothing," Billy says, firmly. "There's no TV here; there's a phone, but nothing else. Just you, me and the mountains."

Dom breaks into what fights to be a grin but is far too contented to be anything more than a glow. "Perfect," he says, shutting the bathroom door after him.

Billy is back in bed when Dom enters the room, complete with hastily-arranged tray of food. "Breakfast! Fantastic idea, I'm starved."

"Budge up." Dom settles himself under the covers, carefully laying the tray across their laps. "Good thing we brought lots of food, yeah?"

"Very good thing," Billy agrees, tucking in. They talk at times with their mouths full, but mostly are silent, chewing and leaning against the headboard.

It's Dom who voices it. "Should this be weird, Bill?" He purses his face up, thinking how to put into words what is so hard to shape that way. "I mean, here we are, just the two of us, almost as if the rest of the world had vanished, up in the mountains, in the same bed – and, might I add, naked – and it doesn't feel weird, it feels like I kind of want the rest of the human race to leave or die out and it'll just be us two and the quiet and it's all I'll ever need and I didn't, exactly, mean to say that and should it be weird?" He stops for breath, eyes closed, one hand clutching the covers.

Billy puts his hand over it, smoothing out Dom's fingers where they twist the sheets. He puts his palm to Dom's. He doesn't say anything, but he nods understanding, and Dom leans his head on Billy's shoulder, sighing.

"It's not weird, somehow," Dom whispers. Billy nods agreement this time, nuzzles Dom's hair with his nose and presses his lips there.

"I like doing that," he says at last. "Kissing your hair. Should that be weird?"

"Don't care. I like it when you do that. Makes me feel … safe." He curls his arms and body and hands around Billy, who sets the tray aside and curls around Dom, close as can be.

"You're safe with me," he murmurs, and Dom nods _I know_. "I heard that," Billy whispers. "Should _that_ be weird?"

Dom's heart stops, skips, skids, starts up again, and he breathes out. "Maybe a bit," he chuckles. "I always hear you."

"I know. Always hear you." Billy pauses. "Definitely weird."

"Billy, I do believe we are weird people," Dom says, in mock amazement, and Billy laughs.

"I like being weird with you," he sighs, and blinks, aware of being suddenly brought to something much sooner than he'd anticipated. _Ah, well. Seize the moment and all._

"You going to do it, or shall I?" Dom asks, five minutes of silence and stillness later. Billy laughs, then sighs.

"I'll do it. I just … want to savour it. Enjoy every moment, you know?"

Dom curls up and in closer. "I do know," he nods.

It's a good twenty minutes of just breathing each other in, closing the distance inch by inch, slowly, no rush in all the world, before their lips brush. The lightest of touches, and Dom doesn't feel like moving much anyhow, and neither does Billy, so they just stay there for a while. Curled against each other, lips connected, breathing into each other, fingertips the only things moving but their chests, in and out, fingers circling lightly, just the edges and tips of sensation. Dom feels himself slowly, so slowly that nothing exists but their little world and this feeling, being filled with peace.

"Let's never leave," he whispers, movement taking Billy's lips with his.

"Sounds like a plan," Billy sighs in return.


End file.
